And your files are HUGE! 300kb???
Damn, I'm on DSL and I got bored of waiting, so I switched to other window.

Get some basic computer post procesing:
1. scan at high res. 300 or 600 dpi
2. apply curves in more or less this fashion.
(alternatively, use "levels" or adjust brightness contrast)
3. merge layers, resize to the web size (ie 800 pixels wide)
4. use export/save for web/optymize/JPG wizard, or whatever.

Come back when you mastered that.

(BTW, if you lack software...
GIMP is free, and PSP has a free 30 day demo.)

And your files are HUGE! 300kb???Damn, I'm on DSL and I got bored of waiting, so I switched to other window.

Get some basic computer post procesing:1. scan at high res. 300 or 600 dpi2. apply curves in more or less this fashion.(alternatively, use "levels" or adjust brightness contrast)3. merge layers, resize to the web size (ie 800 pixels wide)4. use export/save for web/optymize/JPG wizard, or whatever.

Come back when you mastered that.

(BTW, if you lack software...GIMP is free, and PSP has a free 30 day demo.)

The older stuff is on lined paper... I use a calligraphy pen to ink... as for the size (pixel dimensions), the smallest I've been able to get after scanning is the size you see. Any smaller, and it looks really bad. As for actual file size, that's saved as a jpg image.

Gimp... I could never install that, for some reason. It always has a new error message for me when I try. But I'll try again...

I preferered your second one:
- The outlines matched the shading more. Since it was done all in pencil it was more sequential then the first.
- The shading blended in with the lines better creating a more realistic look.
- The first was on lined paper
- The first took me quite a while to load and I'm running ADSL.

Calligraphy pens? Have you given a thought to using something pressure sensitive such a brush or crow quill? Heck, one of those things that are like makers with a felt brush tip might work out and you wouldn't have to worry about the ink bottle that way. I can't imagine working with a calligraphy pen; how does it work out for you and why did you choose it? I'm not trying to be insulting here; just honestly curious.

And ALWAYS scan at a higher resolution than you need and shrink if you are going to be posting something on the internet. This is because monitor resolutions are very low and you NEED to have some anti-aliasing to make it look right.

don't know if the inking adds anything much, for that reason i prefer the second. i also prefer the lettering in the second - the drippy blood/halloween lettering doesn't cut it for me.

can i suggest that if you're mostly using pencil to shade that you get a variety of leads (HB, 2B, 4B, etc) and pencil shapes and sizes - this will give you a wider range of blacks for shading and help give you greater depth, harder edges, stronger shadows etc.

Stephen Henderson-Grady wrote:Calligraphy pens? Have you given a thought to using something pressure sensitive such a brush or crow quill? Heck, one of those things that are like makers with a felt brush tip might work out and you wouldn't have to worry about the ink bottle that way. I can't imagine working with a calligraphy pen; how does it work out for you and why did you choose it? I'm not trying to be insulting here; just honestly curious.

I use a newer internal inkwell one. Cheap, but it works out more nicely than using my normal school pens... I started out by using BIC pens, then I moved on to PILOT finepoint gel pens, then back to BICs, and then finally on to the calligraphy pen that I'm using now. I really can't afford to use anything more expensive at the moment...

And GIMP works... works better for me than any other image manip program I've used to date, too. Took me five minutes to figure it out, and five minutes to do a character's face.

The GIMP is by far the best free image manipulation program available. Not up to Photoshop level but for most webcomics you won't be needing the extra power Photoshop gives you. The only problem with the ol' GIMP is that it doesn't do pressure sensitivity in the Windows version, only the Linux one.

I see where you are coming from on the cost thing; web-comics for almost all of us are strictly hobbies and sometimes eating has to come first, eh?

Say, that's looking pretty good. You might want to darken those ink lines before you start coloring, though. They are looking kinda gray.

I'm really liking that jagged stylization in the cloak; perhaps some of your other stuff in the drawing could benefit from that sort of boldness. His face look kind of shown up in comparison.

And spot some blacks. What I mean by that is you can pick areas that are going to be in deep shadow and just make them totally black. Very useful for developing a balanced feel in a black and white image. This can be done (if you so desire) digitally and digitally is indeed a good way to do it.

The text in both of them kinda bothers me, especially the first one since it looks pixelated. Neither of the text fonts, nor the boxes that surround them, really fit with your pencilled shading. Try to go for something that fits the overall feel better.

To tell you the truth, I'm comfortable either way. A couple of my readers voiced a complaint on both styles, but also, my audience is largely members of the forums at Bob ang George, so I'm one of three hand drawn comics that anyone reads in that board. Out of a good 120+...

You might also consider using GIF or PNG images instead of JPEGs. JPEGs use a form of compression that causes lines that should be crisp and sharp to appear "smeared". This causes the "ghosting" effect around the text on the image on photobucket.com. The image on freewebs.com doesn't have this problem, but the file size is huge, which suggests to me that you saved the image at 0% compression. The image looks good, but people on dialup will hate you. GIF and PNG images don't lose data when they are compressed like JPEGs do, so you can get a reasonable file size without loss of image quality.

Oh, and hi all. I'm new here. I'll be introducing myself shortly in my own thread.